SANBORNTON – It was the hottest day of the summer so far, with the thermometer reaching into the high 90s for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the completion of a farmers porch at the local farmers market.

But a cooler note was added by unveiling a recently restored town treasure, a large snowroller that may date to 1906, once used to pack down snowfall to make roads passable for sleighs and other travel during the winter.

The town treasure nearly vanished over time. It had lost the pole that hooked it to teams of horses or oxen that drew it along. Also missing were many wooden rollers, which had rotted away as the heavy machine sank deeper into the earth while it languished in a makeshift shelter at the Andrews farm until Edna Hansen and Ralph Sellars persuaded the Sanbornton Historical Society to take on the restoration project four years ago.

A snowroller believed to be more than 100 years old has been restored by the Sanbornton Historical Society. (ROGER AMSDEN)

Sellars, a retired engineer, spent an untold number of hours over the last four years to restore the snowroller, carefully removing the old wood and rusted metal parts that had held the 12-foot wide, six-foot high roller together, replacing worn wood with red oak planks and building a new seat atop the roller.

Resident Miriam "Mim'' Kent said she can still remember watching the roller in operation during the 1920s. She would run to the sitting room window of her Pound Road home when her father, Carl Hanson, alerted her it was coming up the road.

"There were five or six men riding in the seat on top, to give it enough weight to pack the snow, and they used four teams of horses to pull it because it was so heavy," said Kent, the wife of former WBZ radio and television meteorologist Don Kent.

The Kents have made their home in Sanbornton for more than 20 years, since he retired from broadcasting.

Society member Edna Hansen, who pushed to have the society save the snowroller, said the ride down the steep hills in town must have been quite an adventure for those seated on top.

The seat on the restored roller is painted a light blue, exactly as Kent recalls it from her childhood.

The roller is stored in the Currier House, a former school bus garage across from Lane Tavern, both owned by the historical society in Sanbornton Square.

The Currier House is also the site of the weekly Sanbornton Farmers Market, which was started in 2001 through the efforts of Charlie Burke and Jack Potter, vice president and president, respectively, of the New Hampshire Farmers Market Association.

Gov. John Lynch and Agriculture Commissioner Steve Taylor took part in the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the farmers porch which was added at the rear of the Currier House.

The historical society and the local farmers market group raised $3,000 for the porch, which was built by Alan Lefebvre & Co.